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$xhtml = array(
	'<{title}>' => '<code>minequest</code> revived again?',
	'takedown' => '2017-11-01',
	'<{body}>' => <<<END
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2018/12/18.jpg" alt="A large building obscured by trees" class="framed-centred-image" width="649" height="480"/>
<section id="drudgery">
	<h2>Drudgery</h2>
	<p>
		I woke up to an email telling me the course registration period has begun, so I registered for next term&apos;s courses.
		As planned last month, I went with <span title="Web Programming 2">CS 3305</span> and <span title="Data Mining and Machine Learning">CS 4407</span>.
		For some reason though, the proctoring centre denied my request that they proctor my exams in the coming term.
		I wrote to them asking about that, and they replied that their school&apos;s calendar doesn&apos;t reach that far in advance yet.
		They&apos;ll have the new school calendar out near the beginning of next month, and I can register for exam-proctoring at that point.
		However, by then, course registration at my own school will have closed.
		I thought I was going to need to take an unproctored term in the mean time.
	</p>
	<p>
		This is exactly the sort of reason I need to get my proctored terms out of the way as soon as possible.
		Too many things can go wrong.
		What happens if I take all my unproctored courses, then in my final terms, when I have only proctored courses left, I lose access to proctoring services?
		Now is pretty early on though.
		I have plenty of unproctored courses to take in the mean time, so the inability to get a proctor in the coming term only serves as a minor nuisance, and not a major setback.
	</p>
	<p>
		I did try to see if the people at the exam centre knew any other available proctoring services though.
		If I don&apos;t have to put off the proctored terms, I don&apos;t want to, and it&apos;d be nice to know of other proctoring services in case they were closer to home or less expensive.
		My previous attempts to find a proctor got me a short list of services, but all but one had stopped offering their services.
		Surely this testing centre isn&apos;t the only place in these two cities offering proctoring services, right?
		So I explained that if I waited until the date they&apos;d recommended I retry on, my school&apos;s registration period would be over, and asked if they knew of other proctoring services.
		Annoyingly, they wanted to know the exact date my registration period ends.
		That shouldn&apos;t be relevant.
		I already told them it ended before their desired date.
		So I looked it up.
		I thought I only had a week, but it looks like I have a little over two weeks.
		That means last term, when my advisor was messing around and not acting as a go-between between me and the school like they&apos;re supposed to so I could get the registration issues cleared up even get registered for the current term at all, they were messing around for a little over two weeks.
		Wow.
		Anyway, I gave them the date, but then clarified that last term, when registration issues prevented me from registering for the course I needed until the final day, that course filled up and I didn&apos;t get in at all.
		So I couldn&apos;t actually wait for the date of the end of the registration period.
		Not that it mattered anyway, as the date registration closes is before the date the new calendar comes out at the testing centre, so waiting wouldn&apos;t help in that regard anyway.
		After giving them the information they requested and telling them all that, I again asked about other testing centres.
		They&apos;d just ignored the question.
		This time, they answered that they knew of no other services, but they were making a judgement call and setting up a file for me for proctoring next term.
		I wasn&apos;t trying to pressure them into that, but I guess I did come on a bit strong.
		In any case, it seems the coming term is back on track, and when I asked if I needed to check back once the calendar is made available, they said not to worry about it.
		It&apos;s a bit of a pain that my school demands proctors confirm their willingness to proctor so far in advance.
	</p>
	<p>
		My discussion post for the day:
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			You make a good point that this code doesn&apos;t allow user input.
			Normally, we&apos;d say traversal takes O(n) time, but in this case, we actually know what n is.
			We can say that the traversal takes O(6) time.
			I&apos;m not sure if that helps us in figuring out the efficiency tough.
			O(n) is probably still a more-helpful description of the algorithm, as it&apos;s something easier to try to compare other implementations against.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</section>
<section id="Minetest">
	<h2>Minetest</h2>
	<p>
		I checked with the final eyeglass shop.
		They&apos;re more expensive than the first shop I tried as well.
		Somehow, that first shop I tried just happens to be the cheapest.
		I&apos;m done trying to shop around.
		There may be a cheaper shop somewhere, but I have other things I need to get done.
		I guess I&apos;ll try to set up an appointment there tomorrow, I guess.
		I will have my glasses soon, I hope.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="Minetest">
	<h2>Minetest</h2>
	<p>
		I think I&apos;ve finally figured out how to work <code>minequest</code> into a viable form.
		First of all, custom bonus powers need to be dropped altogether.
		They were always a huge flaw in the design.
		Second, the level-up system needs to be made steeper.
		<strong>*Much*</strong> steeper.
		And third, bonuses kept need to be reworked a bit.
		To start with, the extra inventory space bonus will provide incentive for the first level of <strong>*all*</strong> elements.
		The first level gained in each element will provide one extra inventory slot.
		Players will be able to store more items while out and about, but this comes with a built-in cap, as only thirty-one elements are supported.
		A player will, at most, be only able to almost double their inventory size.
		This also rewards well-rounded players, as focussing on only a single element will not allow you to unlock all the extra inventory space.
		For all subsequent levels, players will be awarded an elemental point, spendable on any special node offered in the shop.
		A separate, themed version of each node will be available for each element, depending on what sort of point you spend.
		The inventory bonus will again provide something here, in the form of those themed chests I&apos;ve already been working on.
		Another offered bonus will be warp point nodes.
		Place one, and you can warp back to that spot whenever you like, until such a point that you (or someone else) removes the warp point node.
		All bonus items can be sold back to the shop at face value, so you don&apos;t have to be reluctant to spend your points, thinking you might later regret it.
	</p>
	<p>
		This version of <code>minequest</code> is so different than the original concept that it&apos;s almost, if not completely, unrecognisable.
		However, I think it provides exactly what I always wanted from <code>minequest</code>: incentives for grinding your stats without completely changing the mechanics of the game.
	</p>
</section>
END
);
